The present invention relates to a distributed voice capture and recognition system.
Laptop computers were developed, at least in part, to permit users to perform computing at locations remote from their desktop computers. Such locations include hotels, airports, and business meetings. Laptops normally include scheduler and address book software which allows users to manage such information, while maintaining the capability of synchronizing such information with others and their desktop computer. Typically, data entry on laptops is performed using a keyboard or voice recognition software. Unfortunately, laptops are bulky and weigh several pounds which limits their portability.
Market demands for greater portability than that achievable with laptops have created a new class of electronic devices, known generally as personal data appliances (PDAs). PDAs are small hand-held electronic devices that include many features, such as an address book, a calculator, a date book, a memo pad, and a to-do list.
US Robotics has developed a hand held PDA, sold under the trademark Palm Pilot, having a touch screen display that includes handwriting recognition. The handwriting recognition is based on using a stylus (plastic stick) to draw each character on a portion of the display. The use of handwriting recognition requires the user to learn a scripting character set. Unfortunately, handwriting recognition lacks the accuracy and speed of a traditional computer keyboard. Also, entering letters using the stylus is especially difficult to perform in moving vehicles. In addition, PDA's lack the computing resources necessary to effectively perform speech recognition. Nonetheless, users of PDA's have demonstrated a willingness to perform data entry (creation of new appointments or contacts) on portable devices, such as PDAs, using these traditional data entry techniques (handwriting recognition, small keypad text entry, etc.) in spite of the cumbersome nature of these entry methods.
The application of database synchronization technology to the PDA has dramatically reduced the amount of data which must be entered directly into the PDA. Specifically, corporate phone lists can be automatically "synchronized" to the target PDA as can schedule information from the user's desktop time management software. Given this situation, a class of mainstream users who are unwilling to tolerate the peculiarities of PDA data entry are still able to benefit from the PDA and chose to simply scribble notes which are carried until they can be entered into a host personal computer which will then be used to synchronize with the PDA.
There exists credit card sized PDAs that do not even support on-device data entry. All updates to the credit card sized PDA must be performed on a personal computer which is later synchronized to the credit card sized PDA. The advantage of such a device is that it eliminates the computing resources necessary to support PDA-based data entry, and the size and cost of the resulting PDA can be dramatically reduced. Unfortunately, without the ability to update information on the PDA while away from the personal computer, the user is forced to carry handwritten notes which outline changes to the stored schedule. The longer the user waits between synchronization sessions, the less relevant the stored PDA data will likely become.
What is desired, therefore, is an input system for a hand-held electronic device that is convenient for users.